‘Wet dry season’ and upgrades are good news

for Aqueduct Authority customers: Zuelch

 

BY TERRY SCHMIDA

 

It’s raining bufo toads outside Kirk Zuelch’s Kennedy Drive office window, but to the executive director of the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority, the daylong downpour is liquid gold.

 

 

“We’ve had a really wet, dry season, so to speak, which is good for the Biscayne Aquifer,” Zuelch said. “It’s part of the reason we’re in good shape these days.”

 

 

Across the country and around the globe, fresh water shortages are becoming more frequent, with the ongoing California drought being just one, highly publicized example.

Yet Monroe County, which once relied on rainwater stored in cisterns, is literally awash in the stuff. Thanks to the weather, and what Zuelch calls “forward planning” on the part of the state agency he heads, water restrictions in the Keys – which are actually mandated by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) – are relatively mild.

 

 

Area residents are expected to abide by a watering schedule posted at http://www.sfwmd.gov/portal/page/portal/xrepository/sfwmd_repository_pdf/year_round_3days_schedule.pdf but no wholesale, West Coast-type water restrictions are planned for the summer.

 

 

“We’re very fortunate to have a rainy season, as opposed to places like California,” said Jolynn Reynolds, the aqueduct’s manager of compliance and planning. “Last week really helped the groundwater levels. I’m pretty sure the [SFWMD] had to open the gates to let some of the water out, to prevent flooding on the mainland.”

 

 

For a remote jurisdiction that receives its potable water supply from the mainland by way of pipes along the bridges and roads of U.S. 1, water security in the Keys is something of a modern marvel.

 

 

According to historian Jerry Wilkinson, the Calusa and Tequestra tribes native to the Keys obtained the precious resource from “fresh water holes” and “a few artesianal wells”, but eventually population growth, pollution in groundwater and the draining of the Everglades, which lowered the water table, pretty much ended that.

 

 

Desalination plants were put to work at federal military installations in the Keys in the mid-1800s, but the high cost of running them meant that rainwater and a few remaining wells, remained the most reliable supply for residents. By 1900 salt water had been put to work to flush toilets and fight fires.

 

 

A truly secure source of H2O really only arrived in the Keys during WWII, when the Navy and the newly formed Florida Keys Aqueduct Commission built a well near Florida City and a pipeline to bring water down the Keys

 

 

“The original pipeline held about 10 million gallons of water along its path and water took about six days to reach Key West, depending on the rate of flow,” Wilkinson has written. “The first water to reach Key West through the new pipeline was on September 22, 1942.”

 

These days, the Keys consume about 14 to 15 million gallons of fresh water per day, during the summer, Zuelch said, and about 18 to 20 million gallons during season.

 

On an annual average basis, the South Florida Water Management District allows the FKAA to draw up to 17.8 million gallons per day from the Biscayne Aquifer, near Miami. During dry season, (from Dec. 1 through April 30), that number falls to 17 million.

 

The aqueduct’s $35 million Florida City reverse osmosis plant, which came online in 2009, can produce another 6 million gallons from the Floridan Aquifer. It’s typically utilized from January through April, when peak demand occurs and Biscayne Aquifer limits are more restrictive. Also, “We use it during times of water restrictions,” said FKAA’s Director of Engineering Tom Walker. “During the 2011 drought it was a resource we were able to fall back on.”

And then there’s the Stock Island and Marathon desalination plants, which can produce yet another 3 million gallons in emergency situations such as a hurricane or serious drought.

 

“We use it during times of water restrictions,” said FKAA’s Director of Engineering Tom Walker. “During the 2011 drought it was a resource we were able to fall back on.”

 

Both Zuelch and Walker see the reverse osmosis plant as a wise investment that has helped keep supply reliable and costs down in the parched Florida Keys.

 

“Water is like a lot of other things down here,” Walker said. “It’s more expensive, because it has a long way to travel, but our rates are still not the highest in the state. The capital and operating expense of putting 150 miles of pipe and booster pump stations is high, so water costs more here than in Miami, where they’re closer to the aquifer and have way more customers. But Miami-Dade had fallen behind the eight ball a bit, and are having to modernize their system as well. That’s going to drive their costs up, too.”

 

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